Scholarly Transgressions: (Re)writing the History of World Christianity

Abstract

The history of world Christianity has typically relied on certain binary categories such as Western/non-Western, missionary/native, modern/traditional, and liberal/conservative. Our globalizing context, in which well-established political and ideological borders are constantly being crossed, raises questions about the adequacy of such binaries. Using Christianity in North India as a case study, this article explores the limits of these inherited frameworks for the study of world Christianity.

Introduction

“…Recently, some scholars (Cabrita & Maxwell 2017: 21-22) have begun to critique World Christianity scholarship for its fixation on particularity and its disregard for globalizing and integrative forces within the Christian tradition, such as ecumenical organizations, Bible societies, and missionary societies. Others, such as Arun Jones (2014) have pointed out that much 'World Christianity' research continues to work along bipolar lines of thinking, that find their origin in the colonial period, continually producing and reproducing binaries such as 'missionary' versus 'indigenous' , 'the West' versus 'the Rest' , 'North' versus 'South' . Again others, such as Chandra Mallampalli (2017: 164), have drawn attention to the conceptual entanglement of 'World Christianity' as a field of study with the history of Christianity in Africa and query its usefulness for the academic study of Christianity elsewhere.…”

World Christianity

“…The multiple primary source method proposed by Wild-Wood and Lee and Chow may also prove to be an effective method to dispel some of the tenacious binaries (indigenous/missionary, north/south) that continue to mar many a contribution to the World Christianity debates (Jones 2014;Frederiks, this volume). Wild-Wood as well as Lee and Chow problematize bi-polar lines of thinking that pit missionary over and against indigenous perspectives, be it each for different reasons.…”

Introduction

“…A brief literature survey can illustrate the type of issues at stake: Justo González (2002) has for example pointed to the prolongation of a Europecentered periodization of Christianity, a matter raised by Enrique Dussel as early as the 1960s. Arun Jones (2014) has highlighted the persistence of binary thinking (e.g. indigenous versus missionary), whereas Nagy (2010) has raised the pervasiveness of ethnic and national categories in World Christianity research, which, she argues, leads to oversimplifications of Christianity/ies' complexity and superdiversity.…”